The Doll Maker
by blank canvas of me
Summary: The story of how the other mother/Beldam came to be, and (mostly) everything that came before the events of Coraline. "Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back in." One-shot. Happy Halloween!


**The Doll Maker:**

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><p><strong>(Warning: Maybe a little too scarygruesome for some**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Coraline)**

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><p><em>"<em>_"__How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline.  
>"I swear it," said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave."<br>"Does she have a grave?" asked Coraline.  
>"Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back."<br>― __Neil Gaiman__, __Coraline._

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><p>They called me the doll maker.<p>

I was only fourteen, but I took great pride in my work. I made sure that each stitch was precise, and that the gleaming glass eyes were always freshly polished. Their dresses were the finest I could've produced. The most advanced and gentle silks hugged their tiny frames and frail arms. Blacks, greens, and violet gowns matched their dark and shiny hair. I knew their false scalp hadn't a tangle; I brushed them every day a hundred times each, counting in a whisper as I did so.

I didn't have friends. If I think hard enough to remember, (though it is difficult) there was a time when I was the one wearing the dresses instead of dolls. My hair was matted, but long and healthy as I ran through the gardens with my companions. Our high-heeled shoes tapped against the cobblestones, each of us clasping a beautiful doll rather than me making them.

That memory had tarnished a long time ago, like black ink spilling over a photograph. The only thing I could recall from childhood was that I exceeded in hide and seek, and adventure games. Games that consisted of searching and finding. I was competitive and sly, cunning and deceitful, (I admit, I sometimes cheated) but always won. There never was a time that I could think of where I wasn't the victor.

I smiled fondly at the memory as my thin hands ran along the different materials. My eyes closed as I imagined the sun brushing up against my bare skin, my obsidian eyes shining with happiness. As I molded into the shadows that I had been banished to, my hair grew thinner. It eventually began to fall out, so I took it upon myself to create a wig. My hair was long and black, stretching down to my hips. It was more extravagant than my old brunette hair. Far more. The occasional spiders inhabited the dirty tendrils, but I didn't mind.

My chain rattled as I worked. My mother never unchained me. She never let me go.

The only thing she allowed me to do was make.

Sew dolls together. Select the prettiest blue eyes that I could imagine, and make them shine. My mother gave me the materials, and I worked with them.

The darkness was overwhelming. There was no windows where I created. No doors, no openings, and specifically no path of escape. Only one single door beside me, but my mother always kept it lock. It was an old room, a dirty looking one. We were wealthy, our house large and grand. The other children were envious of my beauty and power, but now I was reduced to nothing but ashes on asphalt. Only the dust and mice kept me company. Only on rare times did my mother give me food. As a result of that, I was gaunt and pale. Ghastly looking, with crooked fingernails and a wicked smile. Nearly translucent, like a shimmering ghost.

After a while, I grew to enjoy my imprisonment rather than resent it. Over the years, I grew taller. Skinnier. Paler. Prettier, at least in my eyes. My ribs shoved outward, painfully showing every inch of my bones. My neck lifted upward, and my long hair was traced with cobwebs and tangles of knots. My dark brown eyes turned to black, while everything else grew slender.

I used to be curvy and round. My breasts were plump, while my hips were extended. There wasn't any evidence of this anymore. I was completely flat, nearing to resemble a flat, lifeless board.

I was elegant.

My wrists turned smaller and smaller, so fragile that I could break them without implicating a strong amount of force. They were bloodied from my chain, dried blood caking my ankle and hand. Every tug of my hand burned so roughly that my blank eyes blurred with pain.

Eventually, just like everything else, I had grown to _like_ the pain inflicted on me with every resistance.

I could scarcely remember who I was anymore.

But they called me the doll maker.

Before that, they dubbed me as a witch.

The people of the town created rumors of me. It spread like wild-fire, and despite being the richest person they knew, that didn't stop them or try to. A part of me never blamed them. They watched me wander around town, muttering to myself and pulling out strands of hair. My expression was always like a clean slate, and maybe my eyes were a little crazed. That was the year I found a book. It contained spells and instructions. The book told me how to speak to Satan himself.

I spoke to the demons, summoning them, and they whispered their commands in the back of my mind. Always murmuring, never ceasing to stop. They peeled apart my mind, replacing everything with more and more declaims. They told me what to do, and I finally broke. Who wouldn't? I complied with their every word, focusing on the task at hand.

Years ago, I sank my fingernails into my sister's chest, then tugged her heart out.

I did the same to my father, then devoured their souls.

It wasn't fair. Why did father touch my sister so, and not me?

My mother found me eating away at them, but refused to obliterate and ruin the family name. Instead of sending me away to an Asylum, she locked me inside a small space that resided in the drawing room. It was for children, a small doorway covered by blue paint. She stuffed me inside before I could get a chance to complete the devil's work. My own mother locked the door, and never let me see the light of day ever again.

I think that somewhere along the line, she took pity on me. She opened that door, gave me food and water. I was her daughter, and no matter what I had done, I knew she could never truly stop loving me. I used that to my advantage. Months passed before she finally granted me a single gift. I begged her to make dolls. That was my only request, and with time, she agreed to stop my pestering.

The demons never stopped whispering.

I named all the dolls. They were my best friends. I suppose the devil in my head all the time got a tad troublesome. That's why I took such careful time crafting them to perfection- they deserved only the best. So unlike what I had gotten in my short-lived life.

I glanced into the broken mirror as I worked. It was shattered and broken, much like I was. My cheeks were scarred from shoving needles into my flesh years back, while my lips were thin, but red like blood. I had drank from my sister and father, swallowed their crimson. Yet even after the long, empty years, I was still stained of rose-colored lips.

I tightened the dresses on the dolls, spiders running up and down my arms, sinking their teeth into my arms. My chain rattled like it did every day, but I paid it no attention. I ignored the throbbing sting in my arm and legs, but still moved about. I opened the box full of silks and eyes, popping in dark eyes to one of the dolls. Her brown hair hung down to her chin, and her dress was dark and well put-together, much like a grieving widow. One that was still sorrowful over the death of her husband and daughter.

I named her mother.

I then proceeded to gauge her eyes out.

Further days passed. I was older than fourteen, far older, but I still chose to call myself that age. I was immortally beautiful, not an ounce of useless skin on me. Just pure bone and a thin coating of pale flesh. It wasn't long before I ran out of dresses for my dolls, and I impatiently awaited for my mother's supply to arrive.

This time, when her elderly face appeared through the room, I asked her for buttons.

When she reappeared the next time, it would be my escape.

"La, la, la, la," I hummed under my breath as I worked, removing the brown eyes from the mother doll. It took me hours to select the right shade for the button eyes, but when I finally did, I sewed them in as a replacement for the boring polished ones. After I made sure the dress was altered enough, I stuck her on a stand, high above all the others. Abruptly bored from my completion, my fingers tapped against the desk, and I couldn't help but grin with glee when I noted how spider-like I was beginning to look. My fingers were started to turn a shade of silver, almost metallically. "Hm, hm, hmmm," I tuned further, recognizing it as a song my mother used to sing to me before bedtime.

The demons had fallen silent. All that was left was my thoughts, because somewhere along the way, mine had intertwined with theirs. We were one now.

I undid my chains with a needle and thread, letting them tumble to the floor.

My leg slid over my calf gracefully, my posture straightening when I heard the unlocking click of the small door. My mother's face appeared. She had aged over time. There were wrinkles surrounding her nose and mouth, her hair twined and gray, brown eyes fatigued. Before she could open her mouth to cry out, I had already lunged forward.

She didn't struggle, something I found surprising.

I sewed buttons in her eyes, replacing those disgusting tired ones. Blood leaked down her cheeks in a mixture of tears, but her mouth didn't open once. She was still alive, however, her flat chest huffing and puffing in agony.

I buried her in a field beside the house.

And when I discovered her trying to crawl out, I put her back in again.

When the town found out what I had done, they snatched me away in the night. They called me a monster, a beast, a _witch_. They threw me into a cart and without even a trial, they tied me to a wooden pole with straw surrounding me.

They burned me alive in Salem, Oregon, 1692.

Of course, I was already dead, but none of them appeared to realize. After being charred, I merely brushed myself off, and walked back to my home, The Pink Palace. I found myself growing rapidly hungry, but no food suited me anymore.

So instead, with a preferred taste already in mind, I created a world on the other side of my door. I continued to create dolls. A few centuries later, I fed on a little boy. I made him a home, a happy place for him to be safe, but he never truly appreciated it. I sow buttons in his pretty blue eyes, just like I did to all the others that had crossed me.

More years passed.

I called myself the Other Mother.

They called me the Beldam.

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><p><strong>AN: Wow, okay. This is pretty messed up of me. Did it scare you? Because it scared me. Jeez, I'm too frightened to go to the bathroom now. Anyways, I always wondered what exactly the Other Mother was. Obviously she was freakin' old considering how aged the ghost kids were. The author didn't go into much detail, and neither did the movie. I always wondered, so I decided to write a fanfiction for Halloween. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and reviews are always greatly appreciated! **

**Happy Halloween! **


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